The dark held its breath around me.
Not true darkness — that would've been forgiving. This was the kind of black that remembered fire, remembered footsteps, remembered screams. A place scraped clean of anything warm. I hung in it like… like ash suspended in water. Except ash didn't have thoughts. Or the strange, slow pulse running through its chest.
If I had a chest.
My body — whatever shape it pretended to have — drifted low over the cracked stone. Each movement left a faint streak of shadow on the ground, like a brush dipped in ink. It faded quickly. Good. The fewer traces I left, the better.
A brittle hiss echoed somewhere ahead. Not threatening — more like something small dragging itself over old rubble. My instincts perked, sharpening with that quiet, hungry pressure again. It wasn't human hunger. More like the shifting weight of a tide.
I tested my form, rolling sideways. No limbs. Just controlled intention. The drift responded smoothly. There was a satisfaction in that, a strange, almost childish thrill — the same feeling I'd had long ago when I'd first been trusted with a relic dagger and realized it didn't argue with me.
Now, my entire body was a weapon waiting for its first proper choice.
A pulse crawled through the stone — a warm flicker, faint but noticeable.
Essence. Life.
Something alive was ahead.
I slid closer.
The ruins stretched in a long corridor, walls melted in places where mana storms had carved spirals into them. Roots hung down like black ropes, twitching sometimes with the distant tremors of something large moving floors above. Every few seconds the air shivered and small flecks of light drifted down — dust, glowing with stray mana.
I tasted them unconsciously. They had no flavor. No strength. Just irritants in the dark.
Then—
A ripple. A soft, wet click.
I froze.
A creature wriggled in the corner where a broken pillar leaned across the ground. It looked like a furless mole, but stretched wrong — too many joints, no eyes, head tapering into a snout that sniffed every direction at once. Its body was pale and almost translucent, veins glowing like thin threads under its skin.
A Sniffler Larva. Barely above insects. Useless to hunters. But strong enough to kill something as fragile as me.
Its snout twitched. I felt it sense the air currents.
I flattened myself into the darkest corner my body could find, pulling inward until I was no more than a wavering blot in the shadow of the pillar. The larva's head swung my way. For a heartbeat — two — it hovered.
Something inside me whispered: stillness is survival.
The larva went back to chewing on the remains of some other creature's leg.
A faint hum crawled across my awareness:
[ANALYZE: Sniffler Larva]
[Threat Level: Low]
[Essence Yield: Minor]
[Recommended Action: Predation]
Predation.
The word struck a nerve, something buried deep beneath whatever counted as ribs now. My dark pulsed with approval, and the faint tremor it caused almost gave me away.
I steadied myself.
Breathe? No. I had no lungs. But I mimicked the old rhythm — inhale, exhale — letting phantom memory calm me.
I watched the creature gnaw. Its body bobbed with lazy confidence, completely unaware of the flicker watching it from the pillar's shadow.
Slow.
Careful.
Close the distance.
I drifted, a ripple on old stone.
The larva didn't look up. Its snout dug deeper into the half-eaten leg. Its flesh shimmered faintly with stored nutrients — good essence, for something this small.
I reached it.
Then I moved.
My shadow lunged, wrapping around its head in a single, practiced snap, like a rope thrown in perfect silence. The larva jerked violently, limbs flailing, but I tightened. Not with hands — with intention. With hunger.
The Devour instinct surged.
Warmth rushed through me — a messy, chaotic flood of taste and thought and fading heartbeat. I felt the larva's fear, its last spasm of animal panic, the memory of burrowing tunnels and soft soil. For a moment our minds overlapped like two mismatched notes.
Then it dissolved.
Its outline collapsed inward. Its essence flowed into me in thin, trembling arcs of pale light.
[Devour Successful.]
[Essence Acquired.]
[Predation Level: 1 → 1.4]
The numeral drifting in my mind felt unreal. A number attached to hunger. A measure of becoming.
I drifted back, letting the last scraps of its body evaporate along my edges. Little flecks of mana dust lifted from my form and faded into the ruins.
The warmth lingered. Not enough to fill me, but enough to sharpen what I was.
Enough to make me real.
A faint clicking sound echoed further down the corridor — sharper, faster, more deliberate. Not a larva. Something larger.
I tensed.
My awareness widened slowly, adjusting. Every shadow felt deeper. Every sound carried more detail. Memories — or instincts — rearranged themselves without my permission.
A simple truth settled into me like a stone dropped in water:
The more I consume, the more I become.
The darkness pulsed with quiet satisfaction.
But the clicking grew louder.
A second creature scuttled into view — twice the size of the larva. Its front limbs ended in curved hooks, chitin black and polished like obsidian. Its snout was sharper, twitching aggressively as it sniffed at the remains of its kin.
A Sniffler Scavenger.
Much stronger. And fast.
I shrank into the shadows again, body trembling slightly with leftover instinct. The Scavenger's limbs stabbed into the stone as it scraped close, head swinging back and forth. It sniffed the lingering mana traces the larva left behind.
For a moment it paused.
Looked straight toward my shadow.
Heat crawled up my form. If it lunged, I had no chance. Not yet. I'd eaten once — strong enough to feel alive, weak enough to die again.
I stayed still. Completely.
The Scavenger's head twitched. A guttural clicking rattled from its throat. It took one more sniff—
And turned away.
I let out a shaky, invisible breath as it scuttled deeper into the ruins, tail dragging like a hooked spine behind it.
Only when the echoes faded did I move again.
My mind retraced what had happened — the stillness, the hunger, the quietness of the dark that had sheltered me. Instincts layered themselves with memory in slow, natural spirals.
Little by little, the world stopped feeling unfamiliar.
Little by little, this body started feeling… possible.
A breeze stirred the corridor — no, not a breeze. Mana drifted in from a crack in the ceiling, carrying something faint… like a scent.
Warm.
Alive.
I drifted toward it, feeling the faint hum of Analyze activating on its own. A cluster of readouts flickered on the edge of thought:
[Lesser Burrow Rat — Essence Moderate — Threat Level: Medium]
[Mutation: Hardened Bone Teeth]
[Behavior: Territorial, Skittish, Aggressive if cornered]
A rat.
Bigger than usual. Strong enough to crack bones. Large enough that I had no chance in a direct confrontation.
My instincts whispered anyway:
Try.
I hesitated.
Back in my human life, I would've retreated, regrouped, waited for a team. But teams weren't real anymore. Guilds weren't real. Friends weren't real.
Just this body.
Just this hunger.
I slid closer — not rushing, but letting the shadows guide me in a broken zigzag along the wall. The rat was chewing something behind a fallen stone altar. Its back rose and fell in sharp jerks. I could hear every breath now — short, hot, irritated.
Something crunched in its teeth — a cracked bone.
My shadow pulsed faintly. Risk and reward weighed themselves in the dark. The math was instinctive now, no longer emotional.
If I devoured this creature, my strength would spike. Enough to survive the next room. Maybe enough to survive the next hour.
But only if I killed it clean.
I drifted up the side of the altar, hugging every groove and crack like I was painted over them. The rat's tail flicked once, twice — but it didn't sense me.
Good.
Another inch. My body leaned forward. Hunger sharpened into a single point.
Go.
I lunged.
The rat shrieked and spun instantly — too fast. Its jaws snapped. A line of blazing pain scorched across my form — it had clipped me. My edges fizzled like burning paper.
I recoiled, stunned.
The rat lunged again.
I dove behind the altar, slipping under its broken arch. The rat crashed against the stone, claws screeching.
Instinct shoved something into me — not logic, not planning. A shadow pulse. A burst outward.
My body blurred—
And reappeared behind the rat.
Not teleportation. Just speed. Liquid movement.
The rat froze for a half-second, confused.
That half-second was enough.
I wrapped around its throat and constricted hard. The rat thrashed violently, slamming into walls, rolling, kicking. Pain rippled through me — each impact felt like pieces of me were being scuffed away — but I tightened harder.
Harder.
Devour ignited like fire under water.
Warmth surged. The rat's heartbeat fluttered and then stilled. Its body sagged, solid mass fading into essence, glowing threads unraveling into my shadow like spilled silk.
Then:
[Devour Successful.]
[Predation Level: 1.4 → 2.1]
[New Trait Gained: Minor Shadow Veil]
[New Instinct Added: Silent Step]
A sharp, cold thrill ran through me.
This wasn't just hunger anymore.
This was becoming.
I drifted back slowly, letting the last echoes of the rat's life fade from my senses. The warmth settled deep inside, grounding me in this form in a way the larva had not. My edges felt firmer. My drift smoother.
I knew, with sudden clarity, that I could move faster now. Hide deeper. Kill cleaner.
A distant rumble shook the corridor — something enormous moving several floors above.
A reminder: this was only the beginning.
Somewhere in the ruins ahead, something scraped against metal. Something alive. Something larger than rats or scavengers. Something worth more essence.
The dark nudged me gently.
As if saying: go on.
And for the first time since waking here, I didn't feel like a lost soul drifting in ruins.
I felt like a predator learning its first steps.
I drifted forward, deeper into the labyrinth.
The shadows followed as if they already knew my name.
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